Chapter 2

_Lady Canvasser._ "Oh, just this year, couldn't you make it an eleventh?"]

* * * * *

Another Impending Apology.

"Meanwhile Dick Smith is matched with Carpentier, and will receive £200 as the loser's end of a £1,200 purse offered by the Liverpool Stadium."--_Daily Mail._

If it is as certain as this we shall put our money on Carpentier.

* * * * *

"Fallen by the Way. Making a Deep Impression."

_Advt. in "Era."_

Evidently an accident to the heavy tragedians.

* * * * *

"Nurse, superior, or Help wanted, immediately: go to seaside: experienced infant."

_Advt. in "The Manchester Guardian."_

The infant: "Let her come. I think I shall know how to deal with her."

* * * * *

"WRONGLY ATTRIBUTED."

You've heard of Willy Ferrero, the Boy Conductor? A musical prodigy, seven years old, who will order the fifth oboe out of the Albert Hall as soon as look at him. Well, he has a rival.

Willy, as perhaps you know, does not play any instrument himself; he only conducts. His rival (Johnny, as I think of him) does not conduct as yet; at least, not audibly. His line is the actual manipulation of the pianoforte--the Paderewski touch. Johnny lives in the flat below, and I hear him touching.

On certain mornings in the week--no need to specify them--I enter my library and give myself up to literary composition. On the same mornings little Johnny enters his music-room (underneath) and gives himself up to musical composition. Thus we are at work together.

The worst of literary composition is this: that when you have got hold of what you feel is a really powerful idea you find suddenly that you have been forestalled by some earlier writer--Sophocles or Shakspeare or George R. Sims. Then you have to think again. This frequently happens to me upstairs; and downstairs poor Johnny will find to his horror one day that his great work has already been given to the world by another--a certain Dr. John Bull.

Johnny, in fact, is discovering "God Save the King" with one finger.

As I dip my pen in the ink and begin to write, Johnny strikes up. On the first day when this happened, some three months ago, I rose from my chair and stood stiffly through the performance--an affair of some minutes, owing to a little difficulty with "Send him victorious," a line which always bothers Johnny. However, he got right through it at last, after harking back no more than twice, and I sat down to my work again. Generally speaking, "God Save the King" ends a show; it would be disloyal to play any other tune after that. Johnny quite saw this ... and so began to play "God Save the King" again.

I hope that His Majesty, the Lord Chamberlain, the late Dr. Bull, or whoever is most concerned, will sympathise with me when I say that this time I remained seated. I have my living to earn.

From that day Johnny has interpreted Dr. John Bull's favourite composition nine times every morning. As this has been going on for three months, and as the line I mentioned has two special rehearsals to itself before coming out right, you can easily work out how many send-him-victoriouses Johnny and I have collaborated in. About two thousand.

Very well. Now, you ask yourself, why did I not send a polite note to Johnny's father asking him to restrain his little boy from over-composition, begging him not to force the child's musical genius too quickly, imploring him (in short) to lock up the piano and lose the key? What kept me from this course? The answer is "Patriotism." Those deep feelings for his country which one man will express glibly by rising nine times during the morning at the sound of the National Anthem, another will direct to more solid uses. It was my duty, I felt, not to discourage Johnny. He was showing qualities which could not fail, when he grew up, to be of value to the nation. Loyalty, musical genius, determination, patience, industry--never before have these qualities been so finely united in a child of six. Was I to say a single word to disturb the delicate balance of such a boy's mind? At six one is extraordinarily susceptible to outside influence. A word from his father to the effect that the gentleman above was getting sick of it, and Johnny's whole life might be altered.

No, I would bear it grimly.

And then, yesterday, who should write to me but Johnny's father himself. This was the letter:--

"Dear Sir,--I do not wish to interfere unduly in the affairs of the other occupants of these flats, but I feel bound to call your attention to the fact that for many weeks now there has been a flow of water from your bathroom which has penetrated through the ceiling of my bathroom, particularly after you have been using the room in the mornings. May I therefore beg you to be more careful in future not to splash or spill water on your floor, seeing that it causes inconvenience to the tenants beneath you?

Yours faithfully, Jno. McAndrew."

You can understand how I felt about this. For months I had been suffering Johnny in silence; yet, at the first little drop of water, from above, Johnny's father must break out into violent abuse of me. A fine reward! Well, Johnny's future could look after itself now; anyhow, he was doomed with a selfish father like that.

"Dear Sir," I answered defiantly,--"Now that we are writing to each other I wish to call your attention to the fact that for many months past there has been a constant flow of one-fingered music from your little boy, which penetrates through the floor of my library and makes all work impossible. May I beg you therefore to see that your child is taught a new tune immediately, seeing that the National Anthem has lost its first freshness for the tenants above him?"

His reply to this came to-day.

"Dear Sir,--I have no child.

Yours faithfully, Jno. McAndrew."

I was so staggered that I could only think of one adequate retort.

"Dear Sir," I wrote,--"I never have a bath."

So that's the end of Johnny, my boy prodigy, for whom I have suffered so long. It is not Johnny but Jno. who struggles with the National Anthem. He will give up music now, for he knows I have the bulge on him; I can flood his bathroom whenever I like. Probably he will learn something quieter--like painting. Anyway, Dr. John Bull's masterpiece will rise no more through the ceiling of the flat below.

On referring to my encyclopædia, I see that, according to some authorities, "God Save the King" is "wrongly attributed" to Dr. Bull. Well, I wrongly attributed it to Johnny. It is easy to make these mistakes.

A. A. M.

* * * * *

WEST HIGHLAND.

With stern a-droop, a "dowie chiel," I see him lugged at Beauty's heel, A captive bound on Fashion's wheel, Down Bond Street's aisle, Far from his land of cairn and creel In grey Argyle.

I wonder if in dreams he goes Afar from streets and kindred woes, A-rabbiting with eager nose And strenuous paw In birch-woods where the west wind blows By banks of Awe;

And if his slumbers take him back To trail the mountain-fox's track, In corries of the shifting wrack Where one may spy Old Cruachan's twin Titan stack Heaved to the sky;

Or, boudoir-bred degenerate, If ne'er he knew the nobler state, The birk-clad brae, the roaring spate, The tod's dark lair, Too spiritless to grin at Fate Or greatly care.

And better this, perhaps you'd say, Than break his heart for yesterday, Uneasy in the dreams that stray Where lost trails stretch-- Well, he's my pity either way, Poor little wretch!

* * * * *

HOW TO IMPROVE LONDON.

We were discussing London's needs. Each of us was suggesting some long-felt want which most appealed to him or her.

Some had declared that what London chiefly wanted was a tube from Victoria to Chelsea. Someone else said that what it chiefly wanted was a glass roof over Bond Street and the chief shopping area. Someone else said that what it chiefly wanted was perforated pavements to let the rain through at once--and so on.

"What I want," said a pretty girl--so pretty that I almost got up and set about providing her with it--"is a guide to the cinemas. I adore cinemas, but there is no means of knowing what is on unless you go to the place itself. Then very likely it's some stupid long play, with more printed descriptions than deeds and more letters to read than people to see. Now there ought to be a list of all the cinema programmes on sale at the bookstalls, like _The Times_ and _Spectator_."

"Wouldn't you have a cinema critic too," someone asked, "like Mr. Walkley, to say how the films amused him, and so on?"

"No, I don't want that," she said. "But I should like information as to how long they were, and if they were American or Italian or French or English, and I should like a star to be put against those which Mr. Redford had not thought splendid."

When it came to my turn I said that London's most crying need was a tailors' clearing-house.

"What on earth is that?" they asked.

"Well," I said, "I'll tell you. All men have tailors, and for the most part they stick to them, because they find them all right, or fear to go further afield to begin all over again. But every now and then it happens, no matter how good the tailor, that a coat is stubborn. It goes on being wrong. Fitting after fitting leaves it even worse than before; and the result is that one either loses one's temper and bangs out of the place and never enters it again, or, not wishing to hurt the tailor's feelings, one accepts defeat and gives the coat away the next day at considerable personal loss. In other words, a time comes when one either cannot, through disgust, bring oneself to visit one's tailor again on that matter, or when one cannot, through sympathy, bring oneself to ask him to do any more. Don't you know that?"

They agreed.

"Very well then. This is where the clearing-house comes in. The tailor there is prepared to tackle such cases as those I have described. He will come to the coat with an open mind and put it right. You can ask him, without any false delicacy, to do so because it is his business. That's what London most needs," I concluded.

"I daresay you're right," said another of the party; "but in my opinion what London most needs is a good restaurant which has pork-pie on its bill of fare."

* * * * *

THE MILITANT SCANDAL.

* * * * *

"An extraordinary amount of destruction and annoyance is annually perpetrated by the somewhat unsociable creatures known as wasps."--_Amateur Gardening._

They are still more annoying when they are sociable.

* * * * *

"Masterman jumped out of the conveyance, which also contained several ladies, and, overtaking the animals, succeeded in turning them into a telegraph pole."

_Lincolnshire Echo._

This trick is a favourite one with all good conjurers, but rarely comes in so opportunely. The second part of it--in which the telegraph pole is turned into a couple of rabbits--is rather in the nature of an anti-climax.

* * * * *

_The Pall Mall Gazette_ on John Burns:--

"_Johannes locutur est; res finite est._ Or so we hope."

We, too, always hoped at school, and then wished afterwards we had looked it up in our Latin Grammar.

* * * * *

THE MILITANT SCANDAL.

* * * * *

PERFECTION.

(_An Up-to-date Romance of Studio Life._)

Spaghetti, the prince of Futurists, stood And gazed at his work with a thoughtful eye; "It is good," he murmured, "yet not quite good," He had labelled it _Midsummer Eve in a Wood_, But the gods knew why.

A lady's eyes and a calf-topped boot, And a ticket (punched) for the Highgate Tube, He had painted there, with some crimson fruit And a couple of uptorn elms, each root A perfect cube.

"It is better than all those beastly Dutch And the old Italian frauds," he said; "But the little something that means so much Still waits;" and he gave an anguished clutch At his mop-crowned head.

He went to the further side of the room And flecked the canvas with daubs of mud; He wiped it down with a housemaid's broom, And gummed in the middle a jackdaw's plume And a ha'penny stud.

He put on his motor-bicycling mask, And prayed to his Muse; and whilst he prayed (So Heaven is kind to those that ask) Like a mænad flushed from the wine-god's flask, Behold, a maid!

Her skirt was draggled, her hair was down, As though she had walked by woodland tracks Or come on an omnibus through the town, And suddenly forth from her loosened gown She pulled an axe.

And "Thus!" and "Thus!" she observed, and dealt The painted fantasy blow on blow; "Thou tyrannous man, thy doom is spelt!" She gave it another frightful welt, Then turned to go.

But the master, rolling upon the floor, Leapt up to his feet like a mountain kid, And "Swipe it," he said, "sweet maid, once more Just here where the axe hit not before;" And swipe she did.

He pressed his bosom, his eyes were wet, He knelt and fawned at the damsel's feet; "Be mine," he bellowed, "O Suffragette, For the noblest work I have painted yet Is now complete!"

Evoe.

* * * * *

Fair Warning.

"Any wedding, singing party, dance, conserts, dramas, social gatherings, friendly companion, jolly trips, pleasure enjoyments etc. Cannot be performed without at least a Bottle of ----. This is simple in price but gives lasting odours."

_Advt. in "United India and Native States."_

* * * * *

"Again I was welcomed by my cheery hostess, and once more partook of her simple yet palatable face."--_Buenos Aires Standard._

The next time he kisses her he must try not to tell us about it.

* * * * *

CRESCENDO; OR, THE TUNE THE OLD COW'S LIKELY TO DIE OF.

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

(Extracted from the diary of Toby, M.P.)

_House of Commons, Monday, May 4._--Not since epoch-making night four years ago has House been so densely crowded in anticipation of Budget statement. Amongst most honourable traditions of English public life is absolute secrecy in which Budgets are wrapped till veil is lifted by Chancellor of Exchequer. Somehow it gets known in advance when a particular one will prove to be of exceptional public and personal interest. Thus it was to-night. Hence the crowd that filled every bench on floor, every nook and cranny of the galleries.

Expectation fully realised. Lloyd George, Atlas in miniature, lightly bore on his shoulders weight of biggest Budget ever presented to House of Commons. Total expenditure £210,203,000. Total revenue £210,455,000. Balance in hand, £252,000.

How _Mr. Micawber's_ heart would have glowed over this realisation in colossal figures of his cherished principle! You remember his formula to young _Copperfield_: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six; result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six; result misery."

Lloyd George, keeping this axiom steadily in view, after dallying with income and expenditure counted by the hundred million, came out triumphant with £252,000 in his pocket.

Spoke for two hours and forty minutes. Avoiding flights of eloquence that were wont to entrance Gladstone's audience on Budget nights, resisting temptation to epigram that beset Mr. Chancellor Lowe, was content with plain business statement. The massive figures dealt with, the millions lightly scattered there and sedulously picked up here, left some passages obscure. Son Austen well advised in reserving criticism till he had opportunity of studying statement set forth in print.

A passage in speech followed with breathless interest below Gangway dealt with increase of super-tax. Chancellor set forth how what he called a "£3,500 man" would, in addition to ordinary income-tax, pay 1.7d. in the £. Running up the gamut to "a £10,000 man" he mentioned that the affluent citizen would oblige with an additional 8.9d.

"I can," he blandly added, "go further if anybody specially wants me."

General expression of sympathy with Houston when he asked what the £100,000 man would be called upon to pay.

"The hon. gentleman," said the Chancellor, with encouraging smile bent on inquirer, "will be let off with an additional 15.3d."

The Member for the Toxteth division of Liverpool didn't seem so pleased with this prospect as might have been expected.

_Business done._--Budget brought in.

_Tuesday._--Lord "Bob" Cecil, whose industry is equalled only by his ingenuousness, posed the Premier with awkward question. Wants to know "whether the Government propose to continue Sir Nevil Macready's appointment as resident magistrate; if so, whether he will be able in that capacity, in case of civil disturbance, to call upon himself as a military officer to give assistance to the civil power?"

Suggests difficulty at first sight appalling. On historic occasion John Bright found himself in analogous quandary. As he then protested in ear of sympathising House: "I cannot turn my back upon myself." True that in the last three years of his political career he achieved the apparently impossible. But exception does not make a rule.

More exact parallel found in case of eldest of _Dr. Blimber's_ pupils. _Mr. Toots_, we know, occupied his time at school chiefly in writing long letters to himself from persons of distinction addressed "P. Toots, Esq., Brighton, Sussex," which with great care he preserved in his desk. Thus, in case of emergency, Sir Nevil Macready, Resident Magistrate, might write to General Sir Nevil Macready in command of troops in Ireland a note something to this effect:

"Sir,--From information received, I expect Ulster will be in a blaze before the end of the week. Please hold yourself in readiness to co-ordinate the action of your troops with that of the Royal Irish Constabulary.--Your obedient Servant, Nevil Macready, Resident Magistrate. To Sir Nevil Macready, General in command of troops in Ireland."

Premier tried to explain away the situation. Remembering recreation of _Mr. Toots_, it is not really so bad as Lord "Bob's" earnest desire for preservation of law and order in Ulster leads him to fear.

_Business done._--On motion of Prime Minister new Standing Order dealing with blocking motions carried _nemine contradicente_.

_House of Lords, Thursday_,--The death of the Duke of Argyll leaves the House of Lords poorer by withdrawal of a quiet, gracious presence. I talked with him here a few days before the Easter recess. To-night the MacCailean Mhor, on his way to his last resting-place in the Highlands, sleeps amid the stately silence of Westminster Abbey, unawakened by the noiseless footsteps of the ghosts of great men dead. Thus in Plantagenet times the coffined body of the wife of Edward I., brought from Lincoln to Westminster, halted by the way, Charing Cross being the last of the nine resting-places of her bier.

A happy marriage which brought him into close kinship with the Sovereign forbade the Duke's taking active part in political life. It gave him fuller opportunity for dallying with his dearly-loved foster-mother, Literature. Endowed with the highest honours birth could give or the Sovereign bestow, he bore them with a modesty that made others momentarily forget their existence. Circumstances precluding his living at Inveraray Castle and keeping up its feudal state, it was characteristic of him that he cheerily homed himself in a cottage some two miles down the loch-side, originally built for a factor. Little by little he enlarged the residence till Dalchenna House became a roomy mansion. Here, in company of a few choice companions, it was his delight to stay during the autumn months. He kept to his study in the morning, engaged in literary work or dealing with his vast correspondence. After luncheon he led his guests forth, usually on foot, to tread the Highland ways he knew since boyhood, when as Marquis of Lorne he presented the picture of manly beauty in Highland dress that to-day adorns the hall of Inveraray Castle.

In later years he built for himself a châlet set amid the pine-trees of the ancient French forest of Hardelot, within sight and sound and scent of the sea. Like Dalchenna this began in a small way. Enamoured with the peace and rest that brooded over the place, he went on year by year enlarging and embellishing it.

According to long-laid plans he was to have spent the Easter recess in his French retreat. Almost at the last moment duty called him elsewhere, and, as was his wont, he uncomplainingly obeyed. But he insisted that two old friends, whom he had bidden to keep Easter tryst with him, should not alter their plans. So the châlet, with its dainty appointments and its domestic establishment after the Duke's own heart--a French peasant and his wife, who acted as butler and cook--was placed at their disposal, he bestowing infinite pains upon arrangements for their comfort whilst under his roof.

This little episode, the most recent in a busy life, is a typical instance of his unselfishness and untiring thought for others.

A scholar of wide reading, a man of shrewd judgment, and, as his government of Canada disclosed, a statesman of high degree, he might have filled a part in public affairs at least as lofty as that commanded by his distinguished father. Debarred from such career he was content to live up to the highest standard of Christian conduct. If a line of commentary might be added to the inscription on the coffin which to-morrow journeys northward to lie beside those of the ten Dukes of Argyll at rest in the burial-place of the Campbells at Kilmun, here it is written in one of the oldest of Books: "He went about doing good."

_Business done._--Commons resume debate on Budget.

* * * * *

FLORAL DANGERS.

Dear, I do not send you flowers, Though I notice day by day That, 'neath Spring's recurring powers, All the shops are perfect bowers With the floral wealth of May; I could get you quite a heap, Fresh and reasonably cheap.

Here is many a fragrant rose Mingling with the scented pea, Hyacinths whose odour flows Fondly to the grateful nose, These, and many more, there be; You should have them like a shot, But I think you'd bettor not.

Science 'tis that bids me pause; 'Tis by her the tale is told That, by Nature's mystic laws, Blossoms are a frequent cause Of a lady catching cold; Their aroma, so she says, Irritates the passages.

Whether this is quite exact May be food for questioning; But, as it's a painful fact That your membrane is attacked Thus about the prime of Spring, I, who hold your welfare dear, May not leave it with a sneer.